


Genius

by karrahbear



Series: Simple Secrets [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Drabble, Fluff, Gen, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 14:37:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/736786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrahbear/pseuds/karrahbear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody has a secret. This is the Sheriff's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Genius

What nobody knew about the Stilinskis was that Stiles didn’t get his genius from his mother. Anna had been bright, nobody would dispute that, but it was really the Sheriff who had the serious brains. 

David Stilinski had been an excellent student his entire life, pulling straight A’s, ranking as a National Merit Scholar, and achieving a 1530 on his SATs. During his freshman year of college, on a drunken dare, he’d signed up to apply for Mensa. To nobody’s great astonishment but his own, he’d taken the test and qualified for membership to the prestigious club. That was the same year that David had realized he had no passion for his major of aerospace engineering with a minor in mathematics. 

His parents had thrown a fit when David told them he was changing his major, and the vein that throbbed in his father’s forehead nearly popped when he further admitted that he didn’t know what he wanted to change it to. His mother, always the more sensible one, agreed to let him have one semester to decide what he wanted to do.

That semester, David loaded his schedule with a mishmash of classes that were just disjointed enough to make him realize two important things: that he had a passion for puzzles and that he was bad at them. That wasn’t to say that David was “bad” by everyone’s standards, only his own, which still made him better than at least half the population. 

After a brief discussion with his career counselor, David decided to give criminal justice a try. Which was where he got his first ‘B’ and met his future wife. They met during a firearms and ballistics course after David had seen Anna struggling with a jammed rifle. He swooped in to save the day, ended up making the situation worse, got a stern lecture from the professor on proper firearm handling, and then an offer of ice cream from Anna who felt the whole situation was her fault and wanted to apologize. 

They spent the next three years falling head over heels for each other before David proposed the night after graduation. Anna had cried and sniffled out a breathy “yes” that turned his insides to goo as he slid the ring on her finger. 

They moved to Beacon Hills, a town next to the small, prestigious law school that Anna had been accepted to, and David applied for a position on the police force. Six years later, David was still working for BHPD, Anna worked at a local law office, and they were expecting their first child.

Now it was sixteen years later, he was Sheriff, Anna was gone, and Stiles was a sweet, if sometimes painful, reminder of the woman he’d lost years before. With so much that had changed, David was amazed that his brains hadn’t. Which was lucky, he thought, because he’d needed them more in the recent months than he had in years. 

In fact, because of his ability to think and understand, he’d just had one of the strangest and most surreal conversations he’d ever had. He was still mulling it over several hours later as he sat at the kitchen table, a couple fingers of whiskey in a glass in his hand, and his eyes cast downward but not focused. 

The front door swung open and Stiles, followed by Scott, blew into the dining room in a frenzied rush that was only attributable to his son. 

“Hey dad!” Stiles chirped as he made his way into the kitchen.

“Hi, Stiles,” he called, and then nodded at the other boy. “Scott.”

“Evening, Sheriff,” Scott answered.

“What are you working on?” Stiles wondered, emerging from the kitchen with a can of caffeine free soda and a poptart. 

David waved his hand towards the table. “Just work.”

“Oh, cool. Anything I can help with?”

Stiles leaned over his shoulder from behind, bright eyes skimming the photos and reports. David could sense exactly when Stiles realized what he was seeing because his body went unnaturally still. 

“D-dad? What are those?”

His son’s finger jabbed at the set of three photos laid out in front of him. The first showed a beast leaping through the movie store’s front window. The second showed the same beast leaping past a parked car outside the store. The third showed a man, instead of a beast, strolling across the parking lot. The time stamps on each picture put only a few seconds between each still. 

“Crime scene footage,” David answered, taking a swallow of his whiskey. “What I can’t figure out, is why it took me so long to put it together.”

Stiles shuffled sideways and collapsed into a chair, still staring at the photos. He set his soda on the table and balanced the remaining half of his poptart on the top of it. His son seemed at a loss for words, so Scott took up the slack.

“What are you talking about, sir?”

David looked up and met Scott’s confused gaze. 

“I can’t believe it took me this long to realize there was a pack of werewolves running around Beacon Hills.”

Scott’s face went pale and Stiles nearly choked on his own tongue in his sudden outburst.

“Who told you that!?” he demanded, arms waving. “Because it’s totally not true! Werewolves are just stories, they’re in fairytales, like, like – well okay, maybe not fairytales, at least not Disney fairytales. They may be in the Grimm Brother’s fairytales because some of those are just dark and – “

“Stiles,” David said. “Breathe, son.”

Stiles took a gasping breath.

“I figured it out on my own. And I just had an interesting chat with the alpha werewolf.”

“Okay, ignoring the fact that you went and spoke to Derek Hale – how did you figure it out?”

David took another swig of whiskey and let the burn roll down his throat and into his stomach before answering. 

“Ockham’s razor. And a lot of research.” He paused to finish the whiskey in his glass and then repeated, “a lot of research.”

Stiles was still gaping like a fish and Scott was standing eerily still, his eyes wide. He turned back to his son and gave him a look.

“I’m not an idiot, Stiles.”

“Well of course not dad! But this isn’t something that’s really…”

Stiles waved his hand and trailed off as David pushed away from the table and stood up. He found a frame hanging on the wall, a picture of him and Anna at the beach, a two-year old Stiles waving a plastic shovel next to them, and removed it from the wall. 

“What are you doing?”

Stiles was standing next to him now, watching intently as David removed the back of the frame and pulled a piece of paper from it. He flipped it right-side up and handed it to his son. For a moment, Stiles just stared at the paper. And then he flailed.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were part of Mensa! That’s like, freakish, Lydia levels of intelligence! I can’t believe this…I feel like a barely know you.”

Stiles threw his hand back against his forehead in a terrible imitation of a fainting lady. David just shook his head and put everything back where it belonged, then shuffled back over to the table and sat down again. 

“So now can you believe that I figured it out on my own?”

“Yeah,” his son answered, somewhat distantly. “Yeah I can.”

“Good. Because I have some new ground rules to cover with you, especially regarding this new supernatural...situation.”

Stiles groaned.

Scott shifted uncomfortably. "Maybe I should go..."

David waved his hand, gesturing for the boy to take a seat.

"You might as well stay," David told him. "Seeing as how the rules are going to affect you too."

Stiles groaned again.


End file.
